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NFL Picks

NFL Picks: Eagles vs. Redskins Betting the Spread Monday Night

We get our first official glimpse of Chip
Kelly’s Philadelphia Eagles this Monday night in Washington. But the sharps
didn’t want to wait that long to pound the NFL betting lines.

The NFC was a dog’s breakfast last year.
Only one team managed to rise out of the muck and into the playoffs:
Washington, led by incredible rookie performances from QB Robert Griffin III
(102.4 passer rating, 6.8 yards per carry) and RB Alfred Morris (4.8 yards per
carry). Those welcome upgrades translated to a 10-6 SU and 11-5 ATS regular
season. Nobody else made betting on the NFL more profitable in 2012.

Naturally, the sharps are staying away from
Washington this week. Our first episode of Monday
Night Football (6:55 p.m. ET, ESPN) features a new rising star, and it’s
neither a quarterback nor a tailback. It’s head coach Chip Kelly of the
Philadelphia Eagles, who are looking forward to putting last year’s 4-12 SU,
3-12-1 ATS debacle behind them. Nobody else suffered the wrath of the NFL odds more often in 2012.

It’s a simple case of buy low, sell high.
Washington may be the better team on paper (that remains to be seen), but from
an NFL picks standpoint, Philadelphia has all the upside. That’s the main
reason why the Eagles have moved from +5 road dogs at the open to +3 as we went
to press.

It isn’t even that Andy Reid was a bad
coach. Far from it, as they’re likely to find out in Kansas City. But the paying
customers in Philly wanted Reid fired, and once they got their wish, the Eagles
front office had no trouble luring football’s top coaching prospect from the
college ranks. I won’t rehash it here; you can read more about Kelly in my first
look at the opening
NFL odds for Monday night’s matchup.

Three
Points in the Fountain

But have the football lines moved too far
already? The rule of thumb with NFL betting is that home-field advantage is
worth three points, which would suggest that the market currently values
Philadelphia and Washington about the same. But take a look again at our NFL
odds board. Those sportsbooks who have the Eagles at +3 also have the chalk at +105
or +110. You can also get Philadelphia +3.5 (–106) over at Marathon, or an even
+4 (–110) at William Hill. That’s if the lines don’t keep moving, of course.

These half-points and juice tweaks are
nothing to sneeze at. If you followed my columns last year, you’ll know what
I’m talking about: The “fair price” for buying a half-point from +3 to +3.5 is
a shade over 20 cents, according to the Wizard of Odds. That’s about the same
price you should be willing to pay to move from +8 to +12. It’s all because
more NFL contests end with a three-point margin of victory than any other score
– roughly one in six games.

[gameodds]16/226882/?r3=43-19-349/dec&r-1=43-19/us[/gameodds]

Chicken
Soup for the Knee

It also remains to be seen whether
Washington is healthy enough to perform at last year’s level. The latest word
on Griffin as we went to press comes from coach Mike Shanahan, who says it’s
“full speed ahead” for his star QB. If Griffin’s surgically repaired knee holds
up, there’s every chance he could put the same beating on the Eagles that he
did last year. In two games, Griffin posted a combined 486 yards with six
touchdowns and just one interception.

All well and good, but should anyone trust
Shanahan when it comes to the health of his quarterback? Reports from ESPN suggest
that Dr. James Andrews, who cleared Griffin for regular-season action, has some
reservations about how much punishment that knee can take. Griffin absorbs a
lot of contact running the zone read option; he injured his knee twice last
year, and also suffered at least one concussion.

Even if Griffin is 100 percent and stays
that way through Monday, he probably won’t get as many opportunities this time to
shred the Eagles defense. Kelly’s zone blur option should limit the amount of
time Griffin spends on the field, and Washington’s defense, which ranked No. 17
last year in terms of efficiency, might not have two-time Pro Bowl safety
Brandon Meriweather (knee, groin) ready in time for Week 1. That’s way too much
if and might for me to change my sports picks.